I gave a great sigh of satisfaction and stretched my arms behind my head as the last notes of the final bell echoed through the classroom. I could hardly believe how great it felt to finally be free of that annoying golden feather.

No tempting voices echoing in my head. No pain every time I moved my hand the wrong way. And feeling Hephaestus in the back of my mind felt right in a way that Quasimodo just hadn't. Sure, I still had a massive scar on the back of my right hand (which everyone noticed, especially since I no longer had a golden feather embedded there) but hey, since when is having a giant scar not badass?

I suppose I should have expected it, but the rumor mill had exploded at school today. I quickly overheard that someone had actually filmed most of my fight with my Shadow and posted it online, which now basically confirmed for the entire city that I was now a proper Sage Class Persona-user. People still left me alone, probably because no one really knew how to approach me, but now I drew the gaze of essentially everyone within five meters of me and I caught bits of whispered conversation when my name was mentioned, mostly speculation on how the heck I managed to get a Persona of my own and whether I knew Risette, Mitsuru Kirijo, or the other Phantom Thieves. At least the rumors about Akane had gotten buried, as I learned when I texted her over lunch.

I slung my bag over my shoulder and prepared to leave, but Miss Kawakami stopped me before I could go anywhere. "Okuda-kun, you should head up to the Principal's office. Mr. Yamanaka would like to have a word with you before you go home. No need to ask what for." My homeroom teacher cast an irritated glance to one side.

"Wait, is he in trouble?"

"Hell no, that guy's always been the perfect student. I bet the Principal's just scared of him because he has magic powers."

"Who was that principal before Mr. Yamanaka?"

"Kobayakawa. He hired a rapist gym teacher and tried to force the student council to cover up all his scandals according to one of the third years."

"That gym teacher was the Phantom Thieves' first target wasn't he?"

"Man, this school's going to be famous by the time this is all over."

Miss Kawakami gave a tired sigh. "Anyway, just go. And make sure you don't get yourself killed while you're out there fighting Shadows or whatever, okay?"

"You got it," I told her before leaving the classroom.

I ignored the stares and whispers as I made my way to the Principal's Office on the first floor, following the wave of students heading home for the day. Fortunately, the third years seemed less interested in me than their kouhai, so I was able to make it to the Principal's Office with a minimum of talking behind my back.

I knocked.

"Enter," came the voice of the Principal inside.

I opened the door. The Principal himself was a very average-looking, forgettable sort of character who had apparently been old Kobayakawa's Vice Principal back before he'd been murdered by the man who'd committed the mental shutdowns.

"Have a seat, Okuda-kun," he bade me, and I politely obeyed. "So, you know why you're here, right?"

"Reports of how I faced my own Shadow last night seem to have made their way through the rumor mill, yes," I acknowledged.

"Precisely," the Principal said bluntly. "Which is why I want your assurance that you do not pose any threat to this school."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "With all due respect, sir, I'm here to learn, not to cause trouble. As long as the school causes no trouble for me, I don't plan on making trouble for it."

"Is that a threat?" the Principal demanded.

I let out a sigh. "How paranoid are you? Look, when I said 'the school causing trouble for me', I meant something on the level of the previous gym teacher, who raped his students."

I got to my feet, cutting off the Principal before he could continue. "Look, regardless of what you think, I actually like the people at this school for the most part, okay? I don't want to see it destroyed. So think of it this way. I have a Persona, so as long as I'm still going to this school, I can protect you from Shadows. Besides, you wouldn't have to worry about it even if I did lose control."

"What?"

"The Phantom Thieves have been keeping an eye on me to make sure I don't."

"How do you-?"

"I've met them. We had a couple of chats. We're on good terms, but since we still don't know each other very well, I let them monitor me to reassure them that I don't intend to hurt anyone with my new powers."

I was bending the truth here, but Futaba was in my class, and this news seemed to relax the paranoid Principal.

"Fine," he relented, letting out a breath. "You may continue coming to classes as usual, but you are not to bring weapons or use your powers on school grounds unless the school is under attack, you hear me? Any violations will have you suspended on the spot, and the same goes for any other Persona-users in this school."

"Understood, sir," I agreed easily before leaving the office.

I was surprised to find Miss Kawakami and Futaba standing at the office door when I left. "So what did he say?" Futaba inquired.

"Apparently there's a new rule that any Persona-users at this school are not allowed to use their powers at school unless we're under attack."

"Aww, but I like teleporting to the bathroom and back between classes," Futaba whined sarcastically.

Miss Kawakami gave an amused snort. "Anyway, you'd better get going before people start asking questions. Some of you still have identities to protect."

"Sumire doesn't have gymnastics today, so I'll wait for her and Akane," Futaba continued on. "You get going to the Den. We need to officially bring you in as a fellow Persona-user."

"Sure, see you there," I told her before moving to head out.

But I hadn't even got to the front doors of the school when I ran into a short brunette-haired girl, also a second-year, who came charging in from the side.

"Oh, shit, sorry!" she apologized, backing up a little. "Though I also wanna say good, because you haven't gone home yet. My name's Keiko Miyahara, I'm the president of the school newspaper club." Her face betrayed a hint of irritation as she continued, "...and also its sole member."

I let out a sigh. "Let me guess. You want to write about me for the school paper."

"Well, duh!" Keiko beamed. "Ain't that what a newspaper's for? Come on, I'll show you the way to my office. The interview won't take long, I promise." She grabbed me by the arm and started dragging me off down the hall.

Well, I guess Futaba's going to get there before me after all.

It wasn't for another half-hour that I was finally released. That Miyahara girl was exhausting to be around. Another half-hour later, I finally made it to Leblanc.

Sakura-san looked up at me as I walked in. "What took you so long?" he demanded. "Everyone else is waiting for you upstairs."

"Got delayed." I said shortly. I made a beeline for the stairs.

I finally made it into the Thieves' den and sat down on one of the crimson couches with an exhausted sigh. Futaba darted up to the top of the stairs and stood in front of me, her hands on her hips. "There you are! Where the hell did you go? You were supposed to be here before us!"

"Sorry, I got held up," I explained. "The school's newspaper club wanted an interview."

"The school has a newspaper club?" Akane asked, having just reached the top of the stairs herself.

"Yep. A one-woman newspaper run by one Keiko Miyahara," I confirmed. "Outgoing, pottymouthed, dirty-minded, and really dedicated to journalism."

Futaba blinked. "I was going to joke that she was your new girlfriend…"

I groaned. "She barely got me into her 'office' before joking about being in a room alone with a guy. I almost left just for that." I sat up again. "Still though, I have to admit she's smart and effective. She talks a lot of smack, but after hearing her call the principal a 'faceless mob who only has the seat because he was next in line after the previous fatass died' and in practically the same breath say that 'Okumura's death proved that the Phantom Thieves weren't the ones responsible for the mental shutdowns', it's not hard to see that her heart's in the right place, if not her mouth."

"Wait, she said that about Okumura?" Futaba asked.

"Yeah," I told her. "According to her, she was initially skeptical of the Phantom Thieves because your changes of heart seemed a little too close for comfort to the mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns. She figured that your operations might have been a front for whoever was causing those, but she started to question that after you stopped Medjed and completely backpedaled when Okumura died, under the reasoning that if the Phantom Thieves really were a front, killing Okumura would have been extremely detrimental to your ability to keep hiding it. So she instead reasoned that someone else was causing the mental shutdowns and that they and the Phantom Thieves were rivals of sorts, battling across the psychic plane or something like that."

"She actually said that?" Akane asked.

"More or less," I confirmed. "I omitted the cussing though."

"Was she pretty though?" Futaba asked.

"That depends on your definition of 'pretty', but in general I would tend to say yes," I told her. "If you want details, imagine Coco from RWBY but with normal glasses instead of sunglasses and no beret."

"Left an impression, huh?" Futaba snickered. "I wonder what kinds of juicy information she has tucked away in that dirty mind? Anyway, the rest of us are all here, so come on already!" Futaba grabbed me by the arm and dragged me over to the stairwell.

I descended the steps into the massive living room at the bottom and was immediately greeted by loud applause.

"There he is!" Ryuji shouted over his own incredibly noisy clapping.

"Truly marvelous!" Yusuke marveled.

"Congrats!" Ann exclaimed.

"I knew you could do it, kouhai, but...wow!" Sumire praised.

I wanted to run away and hide in a corner somewhere.

"Well...thanks, everyone, but would you mind...not? Doing that?" I asked hesitantly. The clapping quickly calmed down. "Thanks. Also...I assume you heard what happened from Yu and Risette? Maybe saw that video of me?"

"Both," Ren confirmed. "Would it embarrass you too much if we all watched it again?"

"Not really," I told him. "I don't really get embarrassed by things like that."

"Hold that thought," Futaba interrupted. "There's a news studio that's covering what happened last night right now."

"What are you waiting for?" Haru beamed. "Put it on!"

"Doing it, doing it!" Futaba chattered, tapping furiously at her laptop. She seized a remote sitting nearby, snapped the TV on, and quickly navigated to the correct channel.

"-return to a story that has swept across Tokyo, and indeed all of Japan, in the last day." Behind the newscaster appeared a still image of my Shadow, smiling gruesomely at me as Quasimodo loomed behind him. "At around 7pm last night, a local Persona-user named Kenzo Okuda demonstrated to the entire world a phenomenon that has not been seen until now. Prior to this event, Okuda had been attacked by a swarm of Shadows, both of the lesser and Greater varieties, but when he began to tire from excessive combat, he suddenly found himself face-to-face with his Shadow.

"The images onscreen are still frames taken from a video of the event that went viral online after the whole thing was over. As can be seen here, the confrontation with Okuda-san's Shadow was interrupted by none other than the idol Risette and her fiancée, Yu Narukami. Both of them had recently become Phantom Class Persona-users similar to the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, and they came to Okuda-san's defense, completely obliterating the surrounding Shadow swarm and allowing Okuda-san to confront his Shadow with no interruptions.

"Okuda-san seems to have tried to accept his Shadow with no resistance, but the Shadow took advantage and stole the Persona that Okuda-san had been using prior to this confrontation. As seen from the video, the process seems to have been incredibly painful. Risette and Narukami-san then moved to intervene, but here something strange happened. Despite Okuda-kun having lost his Persona, he still resolved himself to fight his Shadow himself, so he somehow summoned another Persona in the shape of a Velociraptor to combat his old Persona, Quasimodo.

"The resulting battle was suitably epic, and with a little support from his senior Persona-users, Okuda-kun successfully defeated his Shadow, and joined with it once again, the Shadow becoming a new Persona, Hephaestus. This is the first time that an Awakening of this scale has been caught on camera, and while Risette and Narukami-san were indeed filmed reaffirming their commitments to themselves and each other in order to increase their rank to Phantom Class, their procedure was far less violent than Okuda-san's confrontation.

"But with this event concluded, we are now left with many questions. What does this mean for Japan? Just why did Okuda-san's Shadow appear before him in the first place? How did he manage to summon a Velociraptor Persona to fight his Shadow? Will he be joining another group of Persona-users, such as the Phantom Thieves of Hearts or Narukami-san's Investigation Team, or will he form his own group or continue to fight solo? These questions and many more remain unanswered.

"Regardless of what the answers to these questions are, Okuda-san himself seems to be firmly on the side of the citizens. Prior to this event, he has been seen saving people in Shibuya, Akihabara, and Setagaya from Shadow attacks many times. However, due to the apparent exhaustion that Awakening leaves a person with, all media outlets seeking an interview have been highly discouraged from trying to contact him. Further updates will be posted as they arrive."

While the newscaster was speaking, several clips and still frames from the video were shown on the screen in the background. Yu and Rise's new Phantom Class outfits, which everyone thought were awesome, me stretching out my hand with a determined, almost murderous look on my face as Velociraptor screeched with bloodlust, my Shadow's monstrous form, and even a clip of my final Heat Riser-boosted All-Out Attack on my Shadow after Rise had downed it with a Gravity spell were all displayed.

"Heh, it's always badass when someone Awakens," Ryuji said as the program diverted off to other news and Futaba switched off the TV.

"Personally, I'm just still in awe that my terminology is being so widely used," I remarked.

"You can never predict or control what goes viral," Futaba stated.

"Regardless, I feel like the announcer asked at least one prudent question," Makoto diverted the conversation. "Kenzo-kun, what do you plan to do now? Are you going to join a team, stay solo, or make your own team? Because given everything that's happened, you're probably not finished just yet, are you?"

"No, I'm most definitely not," I asserted. "So, I've been giving this a lot of thought recently. First, I need to look for my own team. If I'm a Wild Card, that means I have to seek my own path in my own way. Still, that doesn't mean I'm cutting you off or anything; that's what my Star social link with Ren is for. But I'm still different from Ren, so I have to learn to do things my own way."

"Okay then, I suppose that's settled," Makoto said.

"I'm not done though," I got out before she could move the conversation on. "I need something to fight with if I'm going to keep doing this. One time, I found a Greater Shadow that was immune to fire and was too strong for me to kill with my physical attacks before I ran out of stamina. So I had to keep using Mudo over and over again in the hopes of killing it. It worked on like the fifth shot, but next time I won't be so lucky, mostly because Hephaestus doesn't have Mudo. I need weapons."

"That's easily settled," Ren told me. "We can just swing by Untouchable when the meeting is over."

"Okay," I answered. "Thanks."

"Speaking of, what can your new Persona actually do?" Yusuke asked. "You mentioned that it is incapable of performing Mudo, but is it still fire-based?"

"Yeah, I still have fire attacks," I confirmed. "I'm capable of Agi, Agilao, Maragi, and Maragilao now, but I also have a little bit of earth magic, though only as much as a mid-level single-target spell called Magnara. Hephaestus also has a few physical attacks, including a very basic gun attack called Snap, and finally, I can also use the passive skill Counter. All in all, Hephaestus seems to be a very straightforward, combat-oriented Persona."

"Interesting," Sumire commented. "I don't really get that kind of impression from you."

"I have to agree," Haru noted. "You really don't seem like a headfirst brawler."

"Nothing like Ryuji," Morgana commented a little snidely.

"I'm not even going to take offense to that," Ryuji said.

"I know, I hear you all," I told the Thieves. "But hear me out. We all know that Personas can evolve, it's happened to everyone in this room except Akane." Inspector Hasegawa wasn't there, as he was still at work. "Hephaestus is a very simple Persona, and I'm like, super inexperienced. I'm going to need time and experimentation to figure out the limits of what I can do, and starting off simple with a Persona like Hephaestus is probably the way to go.

"Besides, Hephaestus represents more than just fire and strength. He's the god of blacksmithing, and that kind of thing represents my creative spirit. He might not be very similar to me outside of that, but then again, I'm hardly meant to keep him around as he is for the rest of my life anyway. He'll eventually evolve and turn into a form that more closely represents me, or more likely he'll evolve into a form that better represents the part of me that he occupies, and since I'm a Wild Card, I'll eventually gain Personas that represent other parts of me as well."

Everyone was looking at me with surprise. "Impressive," Makoto spoke up first. "You managed to come up with all that in less than a day?"

I shrugged. "My head is an idea farm, and I like to get lost in it. For example, the bible says that God created the world in six days and rested the seventh, but it doesn't say how long a day is to God."

There was a thud as Ryuji laid his head on the table, massaging his scalp with his fingers. "Please stop talkiiiinnngg," he begged. "I can't keep up with all this!"

Ann giggled. "Alright Ryuji, you might want to stop messing with your hair before you generate enough static electricity to knock the power out."

"You're the kid who was on the news, right?" growled the scruffy old man behind the counter of Untouchable.

"That's right," I said evenly. "I've decided I don't want to fight Shadows barehanded anymore, so I need gear."

"Well, you've come to the right place," Iwai told me before looking back at Ren. "With all the people you recommend this place to, kid, I'm going to have enough saved up to buy a bigger shop soon."

"Good to know you're properly taking advantage of my endorsement," Ren snarked.

Iwai laughed. "Never change, kid. Never change." He turned back to me. "So you want anything in particular, newbie? Looking for recommendations?"

"Right now, I'm mostly just looking to go with what works," I told him, looking through a set of displayed melee weapons. "I don't really like guns all that much (too noisy and complicated) so for now, I'll just stick with a melee weapon that I can keep hidden when I'm not using it. Ideally, I'd go for a sword, but I can't hide one of those easily, so if you have any claws, those would be great."

"Claws?" Iwai asked, intrigued.

I held out a fist and then flicked out three fingers, keeping the lower joint of each held ramrod straight while bending the end joint at a 135° angle. The gesture, coupled with my rather long fingernails and the snick sound they produced when I flicked them against my curled thumb, certainly gave the impression of claws.

Iwai looked a little disturbed by the display. "Are you double-jointed or something?"

"If that's the case, it's mostly in my hands," I told him. My fingers retracted back into my fist just as fast as I had flicked them out. "I first learned to do that back in Grade School, back when I was still super obsessed with dinosaurs. Gave myself the nickname 'Raptorclaw' and everything. So yeah, I like claws. You got anything like that?"

"Mh," Iwai grunted. "Claw-like bits aren't super popular weapons, kid, especially as models. If you want something like that, you're going to have to go to a specialist or make a custom order."

"Pfft. Bugger," I remarked sourly. "You know anyone who makes stuff like this that I could learn from?"

Ren blinked. "Hold on, you're not actually thinking of learning to make weapons yourself, are you!?"

Iwai only grinned. "You got guts, kid. Yeah, I could hook you up with some connections. There's this particular shop on the south side of Tokyo, in Nishimagome. I know the guy who runs it. Gruff fella, takes his work super seriously, and really doesn't take other people's shit. If you think you can work with a hardass like him, I'll give you the address and you can see if he'll accept you."

"Sure," I told him, and Iwai headed into the back room to find his address book. When he came back and handed me a slip of paper with the address, Ren suddenly spoke up, "What's that rifle up there?"

Iwai looked up at the fat-barrelled bolt-action carbine Ren was pointing to on display on the wall. The old ex-yakuza grinned. "That, kid, is the only model in this entire shop that I am never going to sell."

"Just looks like a shotgun to me," I made the mistake of saying.

Iwai glared at me. "If you can't tell the difference between a shotgun and a bolt-action carbine the next time you come here, I'm kicking you right back out," he threatened. He turned back to Ren. "That is a British World War II De Lisle Carbine rifle, one of the rarest guns from that period, or a model anyways. It was the first rifle ever to use an integrated suppressor on the barrel, and as a result is one of the quietest-shooting rifles in the world. It's still a bolt-action, so it's heavily outclassed by the semi-auto and automatic guns of the modern age, but still. That is a rare gun, and I'm keeping it as long as I possibly can."

"Got it," Ren acknowledged. "I wasn't planning on buying today, anyway. My Thieves are already really well-equipped, thanks in no small part to you."

"Yeah, don't mention it," Iwai told him. He looked at me like he was about to scold me again for my lack of gun knowledge, but I quickly cut him off.

"I apologize for my lack of gun knowledge," I said plaintively, "and I will make sure to learn whatever I can before I visit again."

Iwai grunted. "Well at least you have manners." He waved us to the door. "Now git. I've got other matters to get to."

A young man with fiery red hair spat to one side before peering out of his hiding place, one hand on the saber on his back.

"Tch, those morons can't even search properly. How the hell do they expect to catch anyone like that!?"

Suddenly, he caught voices coming from the other end of the alley he was hiding in. The young man clicked his tongue in annoyance again and swiftly darted out of his hiding place, finding a new one before any of the mobsters on his tail could spot him. After all that trouble trying to reach Tokyo, he still hadn't managed to outrun the annoying fleas trying to capture and use him for his powers. And hiding in the crowds wasn't easy either. His battle-damaged camo outfit, fiery red hair, and the X-shaped scar across his face made him too much of a dead giveaway. He couldn't even kill the bastards, because for one thing if he was too careless, he'd draw the attention of the law, and second, mobsters had an unhealthy tendency to multiply like the vermin they were.

The man smacked himself in the forehead to clear his mind. He needed to stay focused on his goal.

"I'm going to find you, Yu Narukami," Sho Minazuki muttered to himself. "And this time, we'll see if you're willing to put your actions where your mouth is."